Love and Freedom

by Rosemary Kavan

  Jan confirmed Zdeněk’s view. His classmates, too, were unresponsive to the ČSM. Inept political indoctrination was self-defeating. Combined with the constant re-wording of history books, and the cult revelations, it had created a contempt for authority and scepticism about any political organization.

  Jan’s reforming zeal began with the ČSM. As an elected leader he set out to pump life into it by introducing visits to the theatre and camping at weekends. Even that was a battle: the apparatchiks frowned on the mildest forms of entertainment; any non-political activity initiated from below was ipso facto politically negative. Moreover, Jan persuaded controversial public personalities to address his class and held open political discussions.

  The school staff exhorted their pupils to join the Youth Union en masse, as proof of their own political reliability. Jan objected to this bloodless rubber-stamping.

  ‘Membership is supposed to be an honour conferred on those who have shown an interest in current affairs and a willingness to work for the community,’ he explained to me. ‘If we automatically enrol all those who think non-membership will harm their prospects, we shall merely acquire a lot of useless ballast.’

  His form-master regarded Jan as a threat to his own position. For years no one had taken the ČSM seriously, and now this crackpot was trying to turn it into an association of avant-gardists. He hinted that Jan’s chances of a university place would be jeopardized if he didn’t conform. Jan refused to trade his principles. Fortunately, the Head thought highly of Jan. Had he not intervened, a damaging report, classifying Jan as ‘a dogmatic individualist unsuitable for higher education,’ would have been sent to the university.

  Anxious to secure his father’s approval, Jan had worked hard to catch up with his lost schooling, surpassing even Pavel in dogged perseverance. Though plagued by ill-health, he excelled at the secondary school and scored high marks in the final examinations. However, his acceptance at university was by no means certain. His political background was in doubt. Some cautious members of the admissions board were checking his father’s past.

  Zilliacus was once more in disgrace. Rehabilitated or not, Pavel’s reputation was not safe. Jan wished to study foreign policy and foreign trade but was explicitly told that as Pavel’s son he should not even bother to apply. However, after weeks of suspense, Jan was enrolled at the faculty of journalism and social science. One of the interviewers, impressed by his knowledge of international affairs, had fought hard to get him accepted. He was only sixteen.

  Jan continued his efforts to reform the ČSM at university and to turn it into a genuine political organization of the students. He was soon elected ČSM faculty president. Here too he encountered indifference. Not that all students were apolitical. On the contrary, Jan said, some accepted the basic tenets of socialism, but rejected its official interpretation. They were eager to use their critical faculties and form their own opinions.

  ‘They simply don’t see the ČSM, or any other existing organization, as a platform for their views,’ Jan told me. ‘They see it only as a sieve through which the Party filters resolutions to youth, and as the ČSM stands today they are on the whole right but the majority won’t risk their necks by saying so publicly, let alone try to do anything about it.’

  Shortly afterwards, Jan joined the Communist Party, thinking that in the Party he would eventually have access to the secret documents on the trials and the chance to use this knowledge. But he soon realized what he was up against. He found no one who shared his political views in his CP faculty branch. His first clash with the Party occurred three months after he joined.

  However, he did find some kindred spirits in the ČSM with whom he could work for political change.

  *

  As his briefcase bulged and his brow furrowed I became concerned that his immersion in meetings and minutes would blind him to the human condition. I need not have worried. Even at school, the Headmaster had asked his help in dealing with various problems ranging from truancy to deflowered virgins.

  As a student, Jan’s first protegée was a six-year-old orphan, Marie, whom he met through a foster-aunt, a trainee nurse. Marie was a timid and unsociable little girl. The orphanage hoped that contact with the outside world would help her to relate to people. Men were a rare and hence terrifying phenomenon in her life. With kindness, Jan was able to win her over. She became passionately attached to him. One weekend when the foster-aunt was on duty, Jan brought Marie home with him. She clung to his hand all evening. Only he was allowed to bathe her and put her to bed.

  In the morning, when Marie came into the kitchen, Jan, Zdeněk and a student friend who had stayed the night were having breakfast. Her eyes widened apprehensively and she ran to Jan. He took her on his lap and introduced her. The three boys vied with each other in amusing her; they performed card tricks, animated glove puppets and made paper boats and rabbits. Gradually the female in her awoke. She went from lap to lap, enjoying her power and her popularity. When she left in the evening with Jan, she sighed ecstatically: ‘So many uncles!’ Marie occupied many of Jan’s weekends after that, and the orphanage reported ‘a marked improvement in her social adaptability.’

  His next case was Milena. I arrived home from work one day to find the phone ringing. To my amazement, an irate male voice accused me of abducting his daughter. He threatened to call the police. I told him he was out of his mind, I had never met his daughter, and was about to slam the receiver down when a sixth sense prompted me to find out more. I asked him to hang on for a moment and went into Jan’s room. He was in earnest conversation with a weeping girl of about sixteen. She was unhappy at home he explained, and had run away. Somewhat crestfallen, I returned to the phone and invited the father round for a drink.

  In the meanwhile, I gathered something of Milena’s background. Her father, a widower, was a jealous guardian of his daughter’s virginity. She was not allowed to have boyfriends or to go dancing and had to be in by nine o’clock every evening. He resorted to the old-fashioned punishment of locking her in her room if she disobeyed him. For Jan, who had taken full responsibility for himself since Pavel’s death, such tyrannical behaviour was indefensible. When the girl’s father arrived, the evening turned into a family counselling session. Unable to communicate directly, father and daughter ironed out their differences with Jan and I acting as mediators.

  Milena was followed by Dela, a fellow student of Jan’s. He brought her home at 3 a.m. saying, ‘She’s dead drunk. I couldn’t let her go to the hostel in this state, she’d get sent down.’

  He dumped Dela onto my double divan and withdrew. With crumpled dress, dishevelled hair and smudged mascara she presented a sorry spectacle. I bathed her face, brushed her hair and helped her out of her dress. I made her drink some hot milk, placed a bucket handy and got back into bed. Dela burst into tears.

  ‘My dear Dela, what is it?’

  ‘He’s married someone else,’ she sobbed.

  ‘But Dela, it’s not the end of the world. There’ll be others. You’re always surrounded by admirers.’

  ‘Spongers! The boys invite me because I can always get places for us in full taverns or wheedle an extra round of beer out of the waiter. They don’t care about me.’ She hiccoughed. ‘They wouldn’t care if I dropped dead.’

  ‘Jan would.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps Jan would. He’s a real friend. But no one loves me. No one’s really close. Jan’s lucky, he’s got you.’ The words tumbled out. ‘I’ve no mother and I hate my step-mother. She nags me. That makes my father unhappy but he doesn’t dare to stand up for me.’ She swallowed a sob.

  ‘If he’s that weak he’s not worth bothering about.’

  She rolled over on her side and clutched my hand. ‘I really loved Peter, even if he was fifteen years older than me. Now what have I got to live for?’

  ‘Everything, at your age. Young people believe there can be only one true love in their lives and that when that fails, everything is finished. This is a romantic falla
cy. The human capacity for love is infinite, and every love is special in its own way. We can love as intensely at sixty as at twenty; perhaps more so because we love a real person and not an idealised image.’

  Dela hung on to my hand, trying desperately to understand. I stroked her hair.

  ‘I’ll tell you something from my own life, if it will help.’

  She nodded hopefully.

  ‘When I fell in love with my husband I was sure he was the only kind of person I could live with. Years later I fell deeply in love with a man who was his exact opposite. When we parted, half of me died. I thought it would never come to life again. But it did, in time. I’m sure I shall find someone else to love some day.’

  Little did I know how true this was to prove.

  ‘But you’re an exceptional person. I haven’t got your strength of character.’

  ‘Rubbish! I’ve nearly given up a score of times. But every time, a little voice reminds me that over the next hill something marvellous may be waiting, and I should hate to miss it.’

  The light from the street lamp fell on the sad face beside me. A wan smile flickered over it.

  ‘Cultivate good friends, Dela, especially one or two close women friends: they’ll last you a lifetime; men friends rarely do. They either boil up into a passion or cool into indifference.’

  It was 6.30. I crawled out of bed. ‘Have a good sleep and help yourself to coffee when you get up. Borrow any make-up you need from the bathroom, and come and see me soon.’

  I tucked her in and she put up her arms like a small child. I bent and kissed her.

  That evening Jan came in with a small bunch of violets. ‘From Dela with love.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’ll be all right, especially now she’s found a refuge here.’

  Dela often dropped in for a chat. She talked about her childhood, her parents, authors and politicians she approved and disapproved of. Dela had strong views on every topic.

  She recovered in her own colourful way. She neglected everything for a period of exhaustive promiscuity. Then she flung herself with renewed zeal into work. A series of successes in freelance journalism brought her back to sanity, ready for a deeper relationship. When I did not see her, little notes kept me informed of her progress.

  ‘Mamulinda,’ Jan began. This was his pet name and a warning signal. What was it this time? An advance on his allowance or a loan of the cottage for the weekend? ‘We must help deserving cases, mustn’t we?’

  ‘Another broken heart or casualty of the generation conflict?’

  ‘Yes. It’s Zdeněk Pinc1, from the philosophical faculty. He’s good looking and brilliant but he suffered from polio as a boy and it left him with a withered leg. He’s convinced his girl ditched him because of his handicap and says he’s going to chuck his studies. If he could stay here for a time, I think we could get him over his depression. And you could talk to him.’

  ‘A middle-aged female may be the last person he’ll want to confide in.’

  ‘Oh, everyone talks to you,’ said Jan. ‘Once he’s here, we’ll make him feel wanted.’

  The second evening after his friend moved in, Jan phoned to say he’d be late. ‘Talk to Pinc till I get in; don’t let him brood,’ he ordered.

  Pinc chatted freely about student affairs, particularly their efforts to secure a bigger say in university management and the Youth Union. The apparatus had been forced to grant a concession: the students had been allowed to set up their own committee, VOV,2 within the Youth Union. Pinc saw this as the thin edge of a wedge which might eventually topple the political monolith.

  I steered the conversation round to the young man himself. His father was a miner, his mother a cleaner. His parents had never had time to ponder what politics was about. He’d joined the Party to find out. He objected, though, to the title ‘comrade’. He did not feel indiscriminately comradely toward all its members, he said. His friends, therefore, called him Pan (Mister) Pinc. Pan Pinc’s interests were wide but the overriding factor in his life was his physical disability.

  ‘At first I tried to pretend it made no difference,’ he said. ‘In the classroom it was easy: I was always top. But I had to excel at a sport as well. Swimming was the answer. I practised for hours a day. For a time I beat the healthy boys. But later, as they grew bigger and stronger, I got left behind. I couldn’t improve my speed beyond a certain point. That was the bitterest blow. From that moment I knew I was marked for life.’

  ‘Forgive me, but I find your standpoint irrational. People who suffer from claustrophobia don’t go potholing. All our ambitions are limited by our abilities. At least you have an excellent brain.’

  ‘What’s the good of that?’ he muttered. ‘The girls I go out with are flattered to be seen around with Pinc, the brilliant student leader, for a time. Then they drop me because I’m also Pinc, the cripple.’

  I persisted: ‘You take it too personally. Student love affairs rarely last. A boy can’t afford to marry the first girl he falls in love with during a five-year study course. Why should the reasons be different in your case?’

  ‘I don’t insist on marriage,’ he protested. ‘But I need a steady girl friend. My whole attitude to life is bound by my ability to retain a girl’s love. Failure in that signifies failure in everything else.’

  ‘You have so much to offer, you’ll find the right girl one day, I promise you. In the meanwhile, a degree is not a bad thing to have. You’ll be in a better position to keep her when she does turn up. If I were twenty years younger, I’d accept you like a shot,’ I added warmly.

  Pinc laughed for the first time. ‘In three years’ time I’ll hold you to that. I’ll be Jan’s stepfather. Then we could team your Zdeněk with my sister and that would make me his brother-in-law too. I would be both grandfather and uncle to their children.’ He was still gaily working out absurd relationships when Jan came in. He smiled with relief and kissed me.

  Pinc rallied and philosophical volumes began to appear on the bookshelves in Jan’s room. Hegel and Descartes were exerting their fascination again.

  ‘Pinc is getting married,’ Jan announced three months later. I choked on a slab of bread and dripping.

  ‘He’s only known the girl a fortnight and they’re utterly incompatible. His friends have laid bets that the marriage won’t last. But it’s probably the best solution at the moment. Pinc will have proved his normality to himself. If the marriage ends in divorce, well, there are hundreds of divorces. He’ll be one of the many, not a freakish exception.’

  The wedding was a noisy affair of one happy man, a momentarily glowing bride and a hundred worried guests, including me, the only member of the older generation to be invited.

  The marriage lasted six months. As Jan had predicted, Pan Pinc took the divorce philosophically.

  1. Zdeněk Pinc was one of the student leaders in the late sixties. He signed Charter 77 in 1977.

  2. VOV Prague (Vysokoškolský obvodní výbor) — Prague University Students’ Committee.

  Chapter 19

  Journalism was another outlet for Jan’s social conscience. Students of journalism were required to publish a number of articles by the end of their five-year course. Jan seemed set to achieve the lowest score while causing the greatest commotion round each assignment. Taking Jan on as his part-time assistant, an ex-worker columnist on Mladá fronta, the youth daily, observed: ‘A journalist is either a knave or a fool. He either sells his soul or beats his head against the wall.’ Jan’s detailed investigations of letters of complaint — usually cases of individual versus institution — invariably provoked the anger of authority. The columnist asserted that he had acquired a wall-beater to beat all.

  For example, investigating an eleven-year-old boy’s suicide, Jan found that one interested human being could have saved the boy’s life. He wrote an impassioned indictment of indifference. The paper’s censor banned it: officially there were no suicides under socialism. Countless other papers and journals t
ook the same view. Eventually a Slovak weekly accepted it, the Slovaks, under First Secretary Alexander Dubček, being less hidebound than the Czechs.

  On another occasion, Jan took up the case of two long-haired youths wrongfully accused of hooliganism. He commented bitterly to me: ‘Not so long ago anyone who spoke foreign languages was a cosmopolitan and hence an enemy agent. Now we have a faculty of linguistics, mainly for Western languages. Today everyone with long hair is a delinquent. Is there no objective justice — if not in the courts, then at least in public thinking?’ In this instance, however, justice prevailed. Jan, who had witnessed the incident, not only wrote about it, but spoke so convincingly in the youth’s defence in court that they were acquitted.

  Jan had not forgotten his pledge to publicize the truth about the rigged trials. Those that had been held in the other socialist countries had been revised. Khrushchev had pressed Novotný for a clean sweep in Czechoslovakia. Novotný had appointed yet another commission of inquiry. Its findings were submitted to the Central Committee in April 1963. The documents, which recommended a complete reassessment of the trials, were accessible only to top Party functionaries. They remained a dead pigeon in the Party archives until 1968. Months later, largely as a result of Slovak pressure, the Czech press admitted that charges of treason against Slánský and his confederates had been inaccurate but that most of the accused had committed serious offences against the Party. A few Party chiefs were demoted. The matter was closed. Or it would have been if the Slovaks hadn’t published articles vindicating the ‘bourgeois nationalists’ Husák and Novomeský, and elevated Clementis to a national hero victimized by the Czechs. Jan got hold of a copy of Unfinished Chronicle, a Slovak publication containing Clementis’s letters from prison to his wife Lída. This, he felt, was the love story of the century. He visited Lída in Prague and came home deeply moved.